Sex provides a couple with pleasure, vulnerability and a deep, close connection that is very important to experience in an intimate partnership. It’s also an important time-out and stress reliever from the mundane tasks and pressures of daily life. An unfulfilled sex life can become a big issue that can erode even the healthy parts of your marriage. If you or your partner is having sexual issues, it is best to deal with them directly,...

Apologies are a necessity in life. Our willingness to repair conflicts is one measure of our relationships’ depth. After all, life is filled with disagreements and issues, whether they be with people at our workplace, our children’s school or friends and family. How do we apologize to those in our lives? We want to do it successfully, in order to foster forgiveness, repair hurt feelings and truly resolve whatever the initial...

In these tough economic times, it’s getting more and more challenging for any of us to feel like “giving” anything right now, whether it be money or our volunteer time. We are stressed out, overworked and fear we are heading into a “double-dip” recession (which sounds like a horrible ice-cream surprise covered in doubt and angst). We’re all tightening our belts. So why do I still feel compelled to give extra...

In her People Magazine interview, Elin Nordegren shared that she had no idea that her husband, Tiger Woods, had been having sex with more than 20 women in the past three and a half years. She also said that the word “betrayal” doesn’t begin to describe what her feelings were when she found out about her husband’s infidelities. I have worked with couples wherein one of them claims to have had no idea that the affairs were...

Sibling relationships are most likely the longest-lasting you’ll have in your life. We love our sibs and we absolutely hate our sibs, too! Our bonds with our brothers and sisters help define who we are in conjunction with our parental relationships. Conflicts between siblings are inevitable, because, in many ways, we are wired to compete for the attention of our parents. How parents respond to these conflicts can contribute to the success...

How do people recover from a broken relationship (or I should say, “a break in relationship”)? This means basically that someone in the relationship has decided to walk away, totally and completely. When the ties that bind us together as a family are shredded and on the ground, what is the one left holding the pieces to do? In my practice, I’ve worked with grandparents who are estranged from their grown children and their...